South African dancer and choreographer Dada Masilo is known for her reinterpretations of Western European classics. With her latest, Hamlet, she has shifted her focus from the ballet to the literary canon.

From major tours to noteworthy premieres to Hollywood-inspired musicals (and one movie musical), here are 28 shows on our contributors’ must-see lists.

Queer histories and futures, science fiction and fantasy, techniques and storytelling devices rooted in Black and African culture, and more—our performance picks this month run the gamut. Here’s what we’re looking forward to most.

American Ballet Theatre star Misty Copeland has reshaped the world’s ideas of what a ballerina can look like. Meanwhile, South African choreographer/dancer Dada Masilo has reshaped what ballets themselves can look like. Their career paths have never formally crossed, but The Music Center in Los Angeles recently brought these two artists together for an intimate […]

Dance Magazine editors and writers chose their favorite dance happenings of the year. Here are the moves, moments and makers that grabbed us: Most Heartbreaking History Lesson: THEM Ishmael Houston-Jones (left) and dancers in THEM. Photo by Rachel Papo, courtesy Blake Zidell & Associates Originally performed in 1986 at the height of the AIDS epidemic, THEM […]

After seeing Dada Masilo’s rendition of Giselle, I couldn’t help thinking, “If ballet did a version like this, it would transform not just the genre of the ‘story ballet,’ but, even more powerfully, the narrative of the “ballerina” itself.” I was especially interested in Masilo’s Giselle after writing A Radical Reimagining of Ballet for 2018, […]